


Reflection

by lalaietha



Series: The Apocalypse According to C (with some Help from S and H) [4]
Category: Calvin & Hobbes
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 05:19:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In her head Calvin says, <i>Hobbes told me</i> and Su can't really handle that. She'd got up and hid in her tent because she can't really handle it. How can anyone be expected to?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reflection

**Author's Note:**

  * For [law_nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/law_nerd/gifts).



> Again for law-nerd as part of a fundraiser for ~sharpest-asp.

The camp goes dark when Calvin turns off the Coleman lantern. For a while there's nothing but pitch dark, darkness like Su hasn't really experienced much. No light pollution: no streetlights, no houselights, no security-lights, no lights in the parking lot behind the dorms. It's weird to think how much light there is in her life, really. Used to be in her life. Right there at the touch of a button or a switch and even without that, all around anyway, leaking in from all the little places humans never want to be completely dark. 

All gone out here. Leaving just the flash behind her eyes and, slowly, slightly, as her eyes adjust - the moon, and the stars. 

Su lies on her sleeping-bag for a while, limbs sort of askew where they fell when she flopped down, staring at the roof of the tent. The sky's clear. The moonlight comes in even though she's under the shadow of the tarp spread over both their tents. After a few beats she realizes her eyes are leaking tears and her breathing comes in brittle little snuffles, so she pushes herself up to sitting, wipes her wrist across her eyes and crawls out of the tent. 

_Hobbes told me_ , Calvin's voice says in the whisper of memory. Su stands up and wraps her arms around herself. She stares at the sky. Once it might be nice to see this many stars. Now it just makes her feel small and alienated; she gravitates towards the fire-pit like a rock around one of those stars, looking for that human-made thing, feeling the warmth even just of the banked coals. 

In her head Calvin says, _Hobbes told me_ and Su can't really handle that. She'd got up and hid in her tent because she can't really handle it. How can anyone be expected to? His face so serious, his voice so earnest, Calvin _meant_ every word he said as he told her his stuffed animal told him the world was ending and that he doesn't think he's crazy and pointed out he's the only one who knew. 

She could be really rational. She could remind herself that actually, he might still be crazy. That there's got to be hundreds of people all over the world right now going _ahah! I told you the Apocalypse was coming, didn't I? And now everyone will know I'm right!_ Statistical coincidence, or something. Maybe tomorrow she'll actually stick to that, or try to inside her head. It'd be a little ungrateful, she acknowledges, to rub it in his face. As long as he keeps acting rational - well, he did save her life. He went out of his way to save her life, and to set shit up so her life'll keep getting saved same as his. So maybe tomorrow she'll acknowledge that and know, in her heart, that it was all coincidence and isn't she just lucky his delusion matched up with reality at the right minute for her? 

Tomorrow, maybe, when the sun's out and there's more light. Right now, that seems really thin and unsatisfying and cheap next to the seriousness on Calvin's face when he said, _Hobbes told me_. 

Su finds her chair by its colour-leeched shape and sits in it with only one false move. It's too cold out here, but she doesn't want to go back into her tent. She'd build up the fire, or even drag her sleeping-bag out here, but she doesn't want to wake up Calvin either. Instead she just pulls up her knees and wraps her arms around her body and tries to ignore the chill. 

She wants her mom. And her dad. 

Su's practical. It's like a curse. So part of her immediately tells her that this is stupid and she shouldn't be thinking about it at all, but it runs up against first the overwhelming truth that _she wants her mom and dad_ and then against a little voice asking, but _why_ is it stupid? 

That stymies her. 

Why, says the little voice, shouldn't she go find her mom and dad? It's not like they've got anything else to do. Calvin says trying to save big groups of people is suicide and okay, maybe he's just crazy but whether he's crazy or not _he's_ the one who's got the gear and the food and the gas she's relying on so she'll have to play along regardless. He doesn't have a mom or dad to find - harsh, but true. He outright said he doesn't have anyone but her, when he was trying to get her to go with him. So why shouldn't they go find Su's mom and dad? What's their other plan - stay here until they're old and crazy from social isolation and die of an infected ingrown toenail? 

Her eyes are watering again. And now she's really cold. Su gets up and goes back to her tent. She finds her bag by feel in the deeper gloom and again by feel pulls out her cell-phone. 

One finger presses the button to turn it on and the light of the screen is almost painful after all the dark. Su winces and looks away, blinking until her eyes adjust. There aren't any new text messages and there's still no service. There hasn't been any service for hours. She thinks there probably won't ever be again, that the piece of electronic machinery in her hand is just a really complicated and pointless paperweight. It's not even a smart-phone; she'd figured that with her laptop and all, she didn't need the expense, and that means there aren't even any apps that work without a network to link to. Just a record of hundreds of texts and phone-numbers that probably don't mean anything anymore. 

Su bites her lip hard. Her hand's shaking as she turns the phone off again and digs through her bag a second time, this time not stopping until she feels the soft give of something stuffed under her hand. She pulls a bunch of other stuff out with Mr Bun but she doesn't care. She'll clean it up in the morning. 

There's only so much comfort she can get out of an inert bundle of fake fur, polyester stuffing and memories, but Su slides into the sleeping bag, wraps herself around the stuffed animal and takes what she can get.


End file.
